


Winds of Hatred, Glimpse of Sun

by Ramzes



Series: Shades and Mirrors Done in Two [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7672198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An adored princess. A happy girl. A little dragon. Nothing in Daenerys Targaryen's life could have prepared her for the fight that expects her in Dorne - still embittered, still mistrustful. After all, the Young Dragon's conquest of Dorne took part in living memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Little Princess

As the little girl walked down the halls, the sound of weeping startled her – loud, disconsolate, keening that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. At this moment, she still didn't know that she was hearing the despair of someone who had lost the only anchor in their life, love and loss that had broken a heart beyond mending – but she could feel enough to be scared. She caught the eye of a servant and beckoned her close, the woman leaving her load of linens to offer her curtsy. "What happened?" she asked. "Why is my lady mother crying like this?"

The woman looked uneasy but she answered truthfully, "Your uncle Prince Aemon is dead, Princess. The Queen… she isn't taking it very well," she finished and Daenerys couldn't shake away the strange feeling that it had been something else that she had meant to say. Her fear grew and turned to panic when she entered her mother's solar and Naerys looked at her as if she wasn't there. Right through her.

"Do you want to starve yourself to death?" Daenerys' father asked roughly at the evening feast a few days later. "Such mourning is too much for a brother."

The woman at his other side laughed but Naerys did not reply. She just shot them both a look that made Daenerys shiver, it was so withering. But it had no effect on them.

"Do you want me to take Daenerys to Dragonstone?" Daeron asked a few days later and Daenerys stopped before opening the door, for some reason surprised to hear her own name. "You aren't well, Mother. Let us take care of her until you get better."

_Yes_ , Daenerys thought jubilantly. Her mother still wasn't seeing her and even if she had, it was far more amusing with Daeron, Mariah, and the boys. They weren't so devoted to the Seven and Mariah's harp always sang with joy, unlike the sad weeping of Naerys'.

"Did you discuss it with your wife?" Naerys' voice sounded unusually harshly before she returned to her new, broken tone. "I expect that you did, in fact."

"Of course I did," Daeron confirmed and Daenerys wanted to shout with joy because she knew that he had their mother convinced, yet the day they set sail for Daeron's seat pain sliced through her when she saw how grateful Naerys looked at giving her over. If she were older, she would have found the word – pathetic. Her mother was pathetic in her relief. Daenerys tried to hide her tears, and then Naerys embraced her and held her as tight as she never had before.

"Have good time at Dragonstone, my dear," she said. "I'll send for you as soon as I am better. I know Mariah and Daeron will take good care of you until then."

But she never got better. And Daenerys never returned from Dragonstone. For years to come, she stayed with Daeron and his family because mere months after her leaving, her mother died, along with the babe that never came into the world. And her father didn't care where she was. "Too consumed by women and other pleasures to care about a little girl," Daenerys once heard Mariah say, scornfully. "Especially when she isn't a son that he can use against…"

Here, she noticed that Daenerys and Baelor had stopped playing dragons and were listening intently. She didn't finish.

In time, Daenerys' life entered a certain rhythm. Once a year, they sailed for King's Landing to take part in the celebrations of the King's nameday. A few times, they did when His Grace decided that he wanted to celebrate her own nameday with a tourney as well. It was at one such occasion when she realized that the sword she saw hanging on her cousin Daemon's hip was none other than Blackfyre, and she gasped.

"Yes," Mariah said flatly next to her. "He isn't your cousin Daemon anymore. He's your brother now… you mean you didn't know?" she asked and Daenerys quickly shook her head.

"No, no, I knew, of course…"

She didn't want to bring trouble to her septa. The old woman and Mariah's ideas of bringing up a girl clashed quite often.

"So Daemon Waters isn't a bastard anymore? Or is he?" she asked that night as she combed her hair, and Septa Asara gasped in dismay.

"He is a bastard," she said energetically. "He will remain a bastard, no matter how many swords His Grace gives him. But that shouldn't concern you. You don't need to socialize with him more than you already have. Surely the King will never force you into accepting Ser Daemon?"

"Mariah thinks that everything concerns me."

The red lips of the septa clasped into a dark thin line. "Princess Mariah has had a different upbringing. Sometimes, her ideas of what is proper for a lady do not quite align with reality. I am trying to raise you the way your lady mother…"

_But my lady mother isn't the one overseeing my upbringing anymore_ , Daenerys thought. _Mariah is._ She now had less education in the Faith of Seven and more lessons taken with the boys with the maester. She couldn't quite say why she took them because she'd never be a ruler in her own right and she was only a girl but she enjoyed them nonetheless. She attended meetings at Daeron's side with Baelor and although that was a thing she didn't enjoy, it still gave her a thrill because girls weren't supposed to go there. Daeron asked about her opinion on different matters as often as he did the boys – he was testing all of them. All in all, she was treated as if she were in Dorne, as Septa Asara noted sourly, which would have horrified her mother.

Sometimes, Daenerys woke up at night in panic that she had started to forget Naerys' face or voice. Mariah couldn't replace her mother but she was there, warm and stable. And loving. Yes, Daenerys could say that Daeron and Mariah loved her – and that her father didn't. Later, she would hear the rumours that he actually loved Daemon Waters but she couldn't say either way. Aegon's affections were fickle and she didn't know him or Daemon well enough to say.

"Would you like to be wed to him?" the King asked her one day as they watched the doings in the practice yard. Surprisingly, Daemon Waters wasn't as good as she had been led to think. _Baelor can positively unhorse him, for all that he isn't a knight yet._

"A bastard?" she exclaimed, only belatedly realizing that she might have driven him to ire. But instead of enraged, he looked amused, laughing uproariously and telling her that she was a real Targaryen through and through. But when she told Septa Asara about this, the woman looked at her with concern not this different from Mariah's when she came to know.

"What does he have in mind?" Mariah wondered and then looked at the girl. "Did anyone hear the two of you? Was someone close enough?"

Daenerys who had dismissed the whole accident as one of her father's japes, was suddenly alarmed. "He cannot think of wedding me to his bastard, can he?" she asked urgently. "Can he?"

All that she knew about Daemon was that he was Princess Daena's bastard – her father's bastard now – and that Daena and her own mother had barely tolerated each other. That was all she needed to know.

Daeron reached out, touched her hand the way he did with his boys when he wanted to reassure them. "Never fear," he said. "You won't be wed to him. Not as long as I draw breath."

 


	2. The Bride of Peace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented!

The roar of the crowd was such that Daenerys felt it like a throbbing in her head threatening to split it. The final tilt… the tourney that should have been the peak of her wedding… it would have been if not for him. He who stole the light for himself. He who strutted down the halls of the Red Keep as if he were the one being celebrated, that cursed sword on his hip. Daenerys knew only too well the admiration that people felt for him… and admiring his skills with arms somehow always turned into admiring his looks, exclaiming how Targaryen he looked and always ending up with talks about his vaunted lineage, and how King Aegon had acknowledged him… _Daeron should have sent him away the day he took the throne,_ Daenerys thought resentfully, certain that the mud slung on her mother's honour only served to build up him.

Daemon against Baelor. Equal odds. Equal number of defeated rivals. It could go either way. What did it matter? It was just a tourney… but it did mattered. A look at Daeron's face confirmed that. Oh he hid it very well… but Baelor had to win. He had to.

The signal sounded and the horses trotted towards each other. Daenerys couldn't quite distinguish what was going on in the flurry of dust and spears but Maekar yelled, "He's falling, he's falling down! He cannot withstand!"

Daenerys couldn't see anyone fall but moments later, one did. Daemon.

The uproar that erupted could bring the first one to shame. Everyone on the stands was up and cheering. She saw how next to her, Mariah relaxed and realized that the Queen had wanted her son to win for many more reasons than usual.

"You can let go off my hand now," Maekar said and Daenerys turned to him just in time to see Dyanna Dayne drawing back and cocking her nose, as if she had never clung to his hand at all. Even her new, thirteen year old attendant – or was Dyanna twelve? Daenerys wasn't sure, – who had spent at court all but two weeks had felt just how important it was that Baelor won.

She looked at her husband, wondering what she would see. He was comely enough, Maron. Strangely resembling Baelor, in fact. Old enough to know how to treat a woman and make her feel like she was adored and desired. Daenerys was so relieved that she saw their union as a fertile ground for love. But whenever the conversation had lulled a little and she looked at him engrossed by his own thoughts, there was always a shadow, a lack of smile, a cloud that enveloped him almost visibly. Always, always his expression was pained.

But not now. He was smiling as Baelor turned his horse to them after his victorious lap over the field and all around, the crowd was driving itself mad with its own cheers. "Breakspear! Breakspear! Baelor Breakspear!"

* * *

Dorne did not take to her warmly.

Oh, the lords and ladies who had not accompanied Maron to King's Landing assembled to greet her as Maron presented her to his court three days after their arrival and said all the right things. But there was no joy in their eyes and lots of rigidity to their smiles. Especially the older ones. Those who were old enough to remember the brief period when Dorne had been conquered by the Iron Throne. Even Maron's mother who was not Dornish by birth was polite but reserved. Daenerys had thought that perhaps age and frailty had prevented her from attending the wedding and seeing her daughter for the first time in so many years but Siella Martell looked quite agile as she climbed the stairs without stopping for breath. She had simply chosen not to come.

Whenever she rode in the streets or walked the streets of the shadow city, she was surrounded by silence, broken by hesitant cheers and disgruntled murmuring, one about as strong as the other. No amount of alms-giving could make people warm up to her.

"Give them time, my lady," Dyanna Dayne would say. "It won't last forever. Once they see you can be trusted, they will change their mind."

"And when are they going to see it?" Daenerys snapped once. "Has your lady mother seen it? She's still giving me wide berth."

Dyanna blushed and found no more words.

Sometimes, Maron's face looked like those of the others. Withdrawn. Distant. His eyes would shoot her a look as if he were wondering what she was doing here before he remembered and his courtliness returned. But now Daenerys could recognize it for what it was. Politeness. Nothing more. Desire to make her feel welcome. But she wasn't welcome, even to him. When she thought of her hopes and dreams of how she would be the living symbol of reconciliation, she felt like such a fool!

Adamantly, she refused to move to the Water Gardens that he had built for her. Something deep inside her told her that it was his way to get rid of her, settle her away in lonely splendour. Another voice whispered in her ear that he had known that she wouldn't be beloved and had taken measures to shield her from the hostility of his subjects. But she wasn't going to hide away. If she was going to take her rightful place as the Princess of Dorne and not the despised dragon, she had to stay and fight her corner. But it was so hard when she only had the support of young people at court – and not all of them either. Besides, she could say that the ladies assigned to her knew more about the reason for her troubles than they let on – they were hiding something. Looking at each other, shaking heads warningly before some could say something that Daenerys very much wanted to hear!

And that hot! If Dorne didn't love her, its weather would love her to death indeed if she let it! The courtly gowns that Mariah had warned her she wouldn't need lasted about two weeks before she shut the lid of a chest determinedly and reconciled, asked for a robe. Oddly enough, that led to some thawing from both highborn and smallfolk but it was not enough.

Day after day she received lords and ladies from Dorne and the rest of the kingdoms, as well as some from Essos, prayed into the sept, albeit not as devoutly as her lady mother, engaged with the charities she had demanded that she be allowed to establish or run and went out in the streets. The more people saw of her, the faster they would get used to her and stop whispering about her father. She had little doubt that all they say was true, and then some, but that didn't mean that she was reconciled with bearing the burden of it!

Night after night, she lay down with a husband who was gentle and patient with her but afterward, he'd stare out into the darkness with his mind being far, far away.

She met the woman in the streets of Sunspear about a moon after her arrival and was immediately struck by the oddity of the fact that the dark-haired lady hadn't been presented to her. There was no doubt that she was a lady, her robes were proof enough, and there was no way Daenerys would have forgotten such a striking face. She had never seen a woman so beautiful, with such a gleaming river of dark hair and so fine a nose… but her eyes, red and puffy, were cast down and stayed this way even after she rose from her curtsey. Even the curtsey was very elegant for any woman, let alone one so heavy with child.

"My princess," the woman said tonelessly. "I am honoured."

Around them, people were frozen in stunned, terrified anticipation and Daenerys couldn't understand the reason of it. Even Dyanna Dayne, ever so inventive and quick with her tongue, looked helpless.

"What's your name?" Daenerys asked.

"I am Elana Jordayne," the stranger replied in a low voice.

"Why haven't you been presented to me before? I thought House Jordayne was one of the greatest in Dorne… You would have been welcome to the palace at any time. I'll ask the Prince to address whatever grievances you might have."

"I thank you for your kindness," the woman said, still looking down. Daenerys could feel the despair wrapped around her like a heavy cloak. But she also felt that somehow, she was making things worse. People were gaping at her and when her party left, they were seen off with the same stunned silence, here and there pierced by whispers, sharper than ever before.

In the Old Palace, Dyanna Dayne and her brother Ultor quarreled. Oh, they were doing it in low tones but it was a quarrel nonetheless and Daenerys who was eavesdropping on them greatly regretted that they wouldn't say clearly what the matter was.

"That's for the Prince to decide," Ultor was saying. "That isn't to say that I like it but…"

"But she has the right to know! She's placing both herself and Lady Elana in position that is untenable. You saw how the people reacted. They thought she was mocking her, rubbing it in her face…"

At the end, it was her goodmother who told her the truth of the situation, and in gentler way that Daenerys had expected of her. Anyway, it did little to help her overcome the shock to find out that Maron had lived with another woman openly for years… that they were now dealing with the death of their two sons taken away by the speckled monster just two moons before the wedding in King's Landing… that in another few moons, Elana Jordayne would give him another child…

"Does he still visit her?" Daenerys asked, trying to keep her voice even. She felt like such a fool! Even for asking this question! Of course his mother would deny it. What mother wouldn't?

Siella's brown eyes watched her with unexpected sympathy. "I don't know. You'll have to ask him. But even if he does, what harm can this do to you? You saw her. Can you imagine that she's up to receiving him in her bed for such pleasures?"

Daenerys slowly shook her head. The woman she had seen in the street looked as if she was at the Stranger's door. Then again, in his unguarded moments Maron did not look this different.

"Do they have another child?" she demanded, suppressing the urge to grab the old woman and shake the answer out of her. "Answer me!"

"Their eldest lives with his cousins, in the Tor," her goodmother said reluctantly and Daenerys recoiled. Everyone had known. Everyone. Dyanna. The courtiers. Everyone had known and no one had thought to tell her. Now she realized the full extent of the position she had found herself in: the daughter of a man whose name was still cursed in Dorne; the wife of a man whose heart belonged to another; the one who had caused a child to be sent away from his home because his presence at court would offend her. And she couldn't even blame Maron. He hadn't wronged her in any way. He had tried his best to make her feel at ease. If he still visited his mistress, he didn't do it at night because he spent his nights with Daenerys. _Toiling over the task of fathering an heir on me,_ she thought bitterly, feeling how the only support she had been relying on was taken from her. _I am just the wife. Am I going to have the courage to ask him about her? Mother! Am I?_

 


	3. Just at the Mirk and Midnight Hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented, you're a great help!

At the end, she did ask. She had not truly expected that she would. But the memory of her mother's white face as she waited for a tourney where everyone knew King Aegon's mistress would be crowned Queen of Love and Beauty proved a strong incense. Till the very end, Naerys had refused to ask Aegon about anything, for anything. Because she had known that she'd be denied, so she had not wanted to give him the pleasure. Daenerys did not intend to humble her pride either but she had seen Maron's desire to make her feel as comfortable as possible. Her father had never done that with her mother. It would be different for her. And besides, she wouldn't cry and beg him to leave the woman. She just wanted to know. Still, it was hard to keep her cool composure all day long when her ladies didn't quite dare look at her. Even Dyanna was in no mood to amuse the solar with her fantastical tales that sounded so truthful. But when they all headed for the great hall, Daenerys put a smile on her lips and spring in her step. She was not going in as a broken woman. No way. She played her part so great that from time to time, she caught her lord husband look at her as if he was trying to read her. It was then that she knew he had been told.

Perhaps he'd have the decency not to come to her tonight. But if he didn't, how would she know that he wasn't with the black-haired beauty, his love of more than ten years? Daenerys didn't know what she wanted to happen and when she suddenly saw him in the mirror, she felt immensely relieved that he had taken the decision off her hands… and that he had come.

"Thanks you, Ingara," she said and her handmaiden brought down the silver hairbrush. "You may go."

For a while, they were both silent. She waited for him to say something and he wouldn't. Finally, he sighed. "I am sorry, my lady," he said. "I should have never allowed that encounter."

He was apologizing for the wrong thing! "And how were you going to prevent it?" Daenerys demanded. "By supervising my outings and keep me under lock until you could be sure that the two of us wouldn't meet? Or keep _her_ under lock?"

Maron came close. She could see his face in the mirror but he didn't reach for her – very wise of him indeed! "If the Seven are good to us, she'll leave in two months."

"Two months?" Daenerys asked, fury giving edge to her voice. That was what her father had done, it was said. Sending the woman who had just given him a son away mere days after she had given birth to her son. The fact that it had been on Daeron and Uncle Aemon's insistence didn't matter… and the fact that Barba Bracken had been a witch mattered even less. The wild joy that the woman would disappear quickly went away at the thought that she had married a man like her father. "You'll send her away with her babe as soon as she gives birth? You should have sent her away long ago, then. It should have been more merciful."

Surprise flickered through Maron's eyes. "You're defending her?"

Daenerys shook her head. "No. But it's cruel anyway."

"I agree… if things were as they are. In fact, she'll give birth in a few weeks."

Stunned, Daenerys found no words. The woman certainly hadn't looked this far along. Her health was clearly far worse than Daenerys had thought. Perhaps she'd die in the birthing bed.

The thought didn't disturb her. When she hated, she did so without pangs of conscience. She wouldn't do anything to harm Elana Jordayne but she wouldn't pretend sadness if something did befall the mistress. The paramour, as they called it in Dorne. Daenerys did not care to find out what the difference was but she suspected that she knew.

Then, the sweet relief came. He'd give Elana the time to recover. He wouldn't just throw her away when the first harsher wind blew. He was not such a man.

"Where is she going to go?"

"At the Tor. Her sister, Lady Jordayne, is dead but she won't be unwelcome. And then, she'll be wed."

Happiness filled her to the brim, yet experience made her wary. "Is he going to be a courtier?" she asked.

Maron sighed. "I guess I deserved that," he said. "I still don't know who he's going to be. I must find her the best match possible. I won't allow her life to be ruined just because she gave so many years of it to me."

"How many?"

Why had she asked that? She didn't want to know!

"I was sixteen when we got together," Maron said calmly. Daenerys quickly made the calculation and her heart fell. What chance did she have if he had spent so many years with a single woman? Other woman. "And she lost a great deal of things to be with me." He paused. "She isn't a threat to you, Daenerys. She never was. You're my princess and she's in the past. I was with her before I knew you, that's all you should know. Not when I was with you already. It only looks otherwise because of the babe… and because she's so gaunt that she doesn't look as far along as she is."

For the first time since she had met him, his voice held undisguised pain and Daenerys wanted to slap him but it would be unwise. She knew that it was breaking his heart to say it and that filled her own heart with fury, as black as the midnight hour.

* * *

"I wasn't very good to you, was I?"

Daenerys gave her goodmother a wary look. Siella watched her calmly, her hands rested against the embroidery in her lap. "You weren't bad," she said carefully.

"Still," Siella sighed. "I am too obsessed with my past, it seems, and you represent all that was bad in it. I wasn't right to hold it against you."

This wasn't going well. Daenerys looked her in the eye. "All that was bad in your past?" she demanded. "How so?"

_The Conquest. No matter what, we always come back to the Conquest._

"You're a Targaryen," Siella said indeed. "And Rogare. Let's not forget Rogare."

Rogare? Daenerys searched her mind. Siella Martell had come from Lys. Did she belong to one of the families that had killed Lysandro Rogare and – oh Mother! – Drazenko? Had she come to Dorne as the bride of peace of her time, offered to the son of the man her own family had killed?

"Did you know my grandmother?" she asked, to her own surprise. She didn't know anyone who had known Lady Larra _and_ wanted to answer Daenerys' questions.

"I did." A pale smile, pale like her hand, touched Siella's lips. "She was the loveliest woman I have ever seen. And the saddest."

Now, _that_ took her aback. She wanted to ask more questions but she was afraid that they'd lead to the fate of Princess Larra Martell who should have still been alive but instead had thrown herself off the Tower of the Sun. Daenerys had heard her own handmaidens whisper about the rumours they had heard here, of how Larra had been unable to reconcile with the thought that she might be carrying Prince Aegon's child… and Daenerys suspected that it might well be true. Had this other Larra, her lady grandmother, truly been unhappy? She had always thought that returning to Lys had made her bloom. That had been what she wanted, after all. It was so strange to think how tied they all were – she, from King's Landing; Siella, from Lys; and House Martell that Daenerys was tied for life to, now.

"I am sorry," Siella said again. "I should have known better than take it out on a child."

"It's fine," Daenerys said.

It wasn't, but perhaps it was a start. She looked at the old woman and smiled, no entirely forcedly.

* * *

At the end, she went to the Water Gardens, mere days before the birth of Elana's child. She could not bear the whispers behind her back and the worry on Maron's face as he looked up at the door at any noise, eager to know if it was word from her. Let the woman have her baby in peace. Daenerys would come back after Elana was on her way home and not before. Oh, and she'd have Maron's room entirely cleaned, from floor to ceiling, to erase any trace of the woman's presence! But as days went by, it became harder for her to keep to this fierceness as the sun caressed her bare skin, the blood oranges went ripe for the first time and Dyanna had to stop her little sister from jumping in the pools, headfirst, as Lady Elsbet and the child had stopped here on their way to Sunspear. "It isn't for bathing," Dyanna explained earnestly and Daenerys barely kept laughter in. Dyanna spoke as if she didn't go there for baths herself when it was the dead pitch of night and there was no one watching.

Then, the news came. Elana had given Maron a fine boy and she was fine as well, despite the fears of maesters and midwives alike. Daenerys felt chilled. _A son,_ she thought. _She has given him another son. What if I never do?_

It didn't matter. In Dorne, a daughter was an heiress. And still, her heart told her that her first child should be a boy. Everyone knew that! And Elana Jordayne had taken that from her. But she felt even more chilled when the new word arrived. The child had died at three days of age, having declined unexpectedly and very rapidly, and for a long moment of sheer terror she thought she might have caused this somehow with her resentment.

Her return to Sunspear was sheer torment. People shouted insults around her litter. Her guards dispersed them but could not make them shut up. They thought that she had poisoned Lady Elana. That she had made sure that her babe would die. At times, the shouts grew so loud that she felt as if they were coming from just beyond the hangings.

"Do you think I have something to do with this?" she demanded in the depth of night when it became clear that Maron wouldn't look at her – only that now he did.

"Of course not. I am just trying to find an explanation, that's all. He was such a strong, healthy child. All of them were. I know sometimes it just happens but it was so unexpected. I…"

The black shadows under his bloodshot eyes revealed that he hadn't slept in days. His olive face was paler than hers now. And something urged her to not tell him what she had been dying to announce all the way from the Water Gardens: in less than seven months, she'd give him a child. A son to replace the one he had lost. Be even more important than this: an heir. She'd give him an heir. But looking at him, she knew that it would be better if she kept silent. For now.

Elana Jordayne was wed a mere month after her babe's death – Daenerys prayed that her lord husband would wait before he bedded her. The voice that spoke the words was as hoarse as a crow's. The bride looked as if the faintest murmur of the breeze could break her and watching her, Daenerys realized why Maron had been so insistent that the wedding take place now. With every passing day, Elana was dragged further down by her misery. A new husband would be something else to think about. Not that she'd become infatuated all of a sudden. Lord Gargalen was an old man who had lost all his heirs in the last few years. He had taken her for her proven fertility but he wasn't a man who could make a young woman's heart beat faster. If Elana's beat at all. _It must be,_ Daenerys thought, _because she lives._ As dead as she was, she still walked. She tried her best not to look at the boy who resembled Maron so much, and yet it didn't feel right to ignore him, although ignoring him she did. He _was_ her husband's bastard.

When the ritual was over, she and Maron were the ones who lead the line of well-wishers. Daenerys shivered at the bride's cold hand in hers. Maron seemed to have realized that he was staring for far too long, so he looked away from his longtime whore. Elana didn't seem to even register him, or anything. Daenerys had heard that she had accepted the news of her upcoming wedding with absolute indifference but this was so eerie that Daenerys wondered if Elana hadn't been given something to make her this docile.

Despite everything, she spent the next few months in worried anticipation, dreading the moment when it would be announced that the new Lady Gargalen was with child. It would be her husband's, right? Elana's husband. And yet, a tiny part of her kept worrying even as the gifts for the upcoming birth of her own child kept piling and the hostility towards her in the palace and streets ebbed, replaced by content and joyful anticipation, and Maron smiled as he placed his hand on her belly to feel the movements and she no longer burned to ask him if he had done the same with Elana.

 


	4. Pale Caress of Sunlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented, you're a great inspiration!

As soon as the first three moons, the most dangerous time, was over, they undertook the tour that had been planned and expected since Daenerys' arrival here. The progress that would show her Dorne and Dorne to her. Daenerys didn't think there'd be much to see but was too well-bred to say so. And later, she was pleased that she had because all that Mariah had told her turned out to be true. Dorne was not all hot and sand – well, a good deal of it was but not all. And as soon as they left Godsgrace, Daenerys had more pressing issues to worry about, like the fact that their next stop was the Tor where Elana Jordayne was from…

She wasn't there, of course. She was with her new husband at Salt Shore. But as Daenerys walked down the shore, she wondered if Elana and Maron had made long strolls here, in the brilliance of a fiery sunset. If their romance had started here. If she was lodged in the same rooms the two of them had shared.

"No," Dyanna said briefly when Daenerys asked her. "The Prince and Lady Elana were put in the western tower."

"How do you know?" Daenerys asked, wondering if her knowledge about Dorne was not even worse than she had realized. "I thought Starfall was far away?"

"It is," Dyanna confirmed. "But I visited here often. The late Lady Jordayne, Marisia, was wed to my uncle. You know him from court, I think."

That would be Ser Michael Manwoody. Elana temporarily forgotten, Daenerys was comforted by the knowledge that she had wed into a land where a daughter could inherit without anyone trying to protest her right. Where she could give her own name to her children. Because her own child might turn out to be a girl, no matter how fervently she prayed for a boy.

The reason for her prayer, thought, turned out to be quite harmless-looking. He was eight, small for his age, but quite agile and full of life. Not at the feasts – there, he looked at his father and Daenerys as if confused what she was doing here, although he had to know _. Does he still expect to see his mother,_ Daenerys wondered and suppressed the sudden sympathy for that little person. After all, Daemon had been quite charming, people said. Personally, she had never seen that charm but so many people could not be wrong. And now, Daemon was busy creating problems for Daeron and Baelor. For that reason alone she was disgruntled to see the bastard seated at the dais, although he was sensibly put away from her. And when she retired, she knelt before the small statuette of the Mother and prayed for a son who would be all Dorne valued in a prince… and would look like Maron. That was very important.

When she woke up the next morning, her lord husband wasn't there. This wasn't unusual, since he normally rose before her but this time her heart went cold. She wasn't surprised to see him in the practice yard, so focused on his son's movements that he didn't even notice that she was there. In his eyes she saw all that he couldn't or wouldn't tell her – love, pride, grief, remorse. And she knew that her hopes that he had distanced himself from his past had been in vain.

Still, she was happy. The journey gave them a chance to get to know each other by giving them time. There was no audiences here, no work that took his whole day. Just the two of them. He even traveled with her in the wheelhouse to keep her company, amusing her with his description of the bizarre habits he had seen in Essos. Even his mother's Lyseni family did not get a pass.

The progress was quite revealing in some other aspects as well and soon Daenerys came to be grateful to the Seven for blessing her with child so soon. Now, she wasn't Aegon's daughter, the woman whose looks brought the memory of the past horrors so clearly and uncomfortably . She carried the future of Dorne in her womb and highborn and smallfolk alike revered her for that. She was no longer a stranger. In reply, she refused all suggestions of her ladies to have other attires made for her, wider and better-concealing. The memory of Mariah came to mind or rather, the tales about Mariah. How everyone had predicted a stillborn child or a monster when her last lying-in had coincided with King Aegon's campaign against Dorne; in reply, she had defiantly started wearing gowns that made her state blatantly clear and had finished her challenge by giving birth to no monstrosity but a silver prince. Could Daenerys do the same?

The Red Mountains were green and inviting, nothing like the hot, dusty Sunspear. Castle Yronwood – even cold for a Dornish one. Or perhaps it was the tension between Maron and their host. Mariah had also been quite reserved about the House, always. Across the mountain, both lords and smallfolk were so fair-skinned that Daenerys felt like she had come back home.

Starfall was yet another surprise. They reached the small fishing village a little before the famous night mist fell and Daenerys felt like she'd never see the day again. The mist was so thick that when she raised her hand before her face, she couldn't see it. She shuddered and quickly went back in the well-lit inside of the inn, having satisfied her curiosity. The rage of the Torrentine filled her ears well into the night and in the morning, she could hardly believe that it was the same gentle silver river that was spreading before her. In the distance, the pale castle shimmered like a pale pink rose.

Sandstone and Hellhold finally vindicated her tutors. Sand and hot were in abundance. Daenerys thought that she'd soon start _breathe_ sand if she stayed here long enough! Still, there was certain harsh beauty to that yellow land, hot in the day and freezing at night, and its brown inhabitants. In Hellholt, she was so entranced by the dark mass gathering on the horizon like a true storm that she neglected her ladies' warnings that turned to outright pleas to get back and stayed until the sand blew in her eyes – and then was almost impossible to be taken out.

Castle Vaith was the most unpleasant experience this far. She had been quite curious about Lady Vaith, her father's onetime mistress, but the resemblance to her own mother was unsettling. Very beautiful, pale, Cassella Vaith seemed to be somewhere far away. She didn't try to make Daenerys feel welcome. She didn't even talk to her beyond the most basic of formalities. And she looked like Naerys, disturbingly so. The same hair, the same wasted figure, the same sharp facial lines. Daenerys was glad when they left, even if it was for Salt Shore.

In the months since her wedding, the new Lady Gargalen had recovered to some extent… and she was with child already. Oh, she was as sad as could be expected, sadder than even Daenerys' own mother, but she knew the world around her. Daenerys' discreet inquiries told her that the woman had personally made all the arrangements for their visit, so her mind was back. "You seem to have adjusted here wonderfully," Daenerys complimented her, while inside, she raged when she imagined all the processions where Elana had been at the receiving end of the celebrations, as if she had been Maron's wife.

Elana said something polite in return but his smile was as forced as Daenerys'. The younger woman could feel the effort she and Maron were making not to look at each other too often and behave as if they had never been anything other than what they were now.

"Lady Gargalen looks lovely," Daenerys ventured to say later that night.

Maron nodded. "She's strong, Elana. Always was. She needed to be strong to withstand…" His voice trailed off.

"Thank you," Daenerys suddenly said, surprising herself as much as him. "For not trearing me like a fool; by explaining how dear she still is to you but it's all different now and I am not threatened by the new kind of relationship between you."

He came close and started rubbing her feet, taking them in his lap. Both Daenerys and the babe loved this part of their routine. He was so experienced that she knew he had done the same with Elana in her first three pregnancies. She had spent the fourth one alone, as she was surely spending this one. The old man didn't look like someone who'd offer a massage. "I think there's nothing more pitiful than a relationship that is over but pretends to have transformed into friendship," he said sincerely. "I don't believe there is middle in love. And it wouldn't do her any good either. I already did her enough harm."

Daenerys thought about this. Love? The only instance of love that she had seen was with Daeron and Mariah, so it was them that she tried to imagine, their relationship over and friendship trying to take its place. The hands that she had seen joined so often as if they were truly one relegated to formal kisses? Eyes that drank the other's to the bottom barely greeting each other? Lips that sought the other pair of lips uttering bland words amicably? No, there could never be friendship between Daeron and Mariah, the Dornish sun of his life. They were so close that should life tear them apart, they'd become strangers. Daeron might have tried but Mariah would have never had it. If she couldn't have it all, she wanted none of it – she _couldn't_ have a part of the things that really mattered. And it looked that Maron wasn't different from his sister in this regard; with her knees going weak with relief, Daenerys realized that Elana Jordayne's part in their life was over.

* * *

About two months before her time, Daenerys gave up. The absent Elana, far away and expecting another man's child, was too strong a rival to be chased away by time and distance. She might no longer be in his life but she was in his heart, although his affection for Daenerys grew by the day. He wouldn't forget her like her father had forgotten them, all the women he had claimed to love.

"You can bring Garin to Sunspear if that is your wish," she finally said. Taking away one of the reasons for his grief would bind him closer to her with the snare of gratitude… and Elana wouldn't be here to stir the turmoil with her very presence. Besides, Daenerys would rather have the boy close and be able to learn what he was up to than far away, with people who were bound to his mother and not Daenerys.

So Garin Sand and Astrea Dayne became the first children to bathe and swim in the pools of the Water Gardens, their laughter making Daenerys smile as her suspicions slowly ebbed and her kindness to her husband's bastard started coming more from the heart than brain. There was no doubt that her own child would be Maron's heir; separated from his mother's family, the boy depended on his father solely – and her. No matter what, she wasn't about to punish a child for the only sin of being born. Not that Maron would tolerate such a thing – but her perception of seeing Garin as enemy faded away as days went by and her bitterness at the fact that Elana had robbed her of the satisfaction to have her first child be Maron's first as well retreated, supplanted by the fear of the upcoming birth.

"It isn't easy, for sure," Siella would say stoutly. "But the new mother's joy is such that we immediately forget all we've been through."

Daenerys lapped at her words, feeling that she was getting a valuable lesson, although she knew Siella couldn't promise her a living child. Her prayers for a son for Dorne and herself now turned to pleas not to end up like her mother, always with child and always losing it. All but two.

* * *

She watched with her heart in her throat as Dyanna entered the pool carefully holding Mors. What if she dropped him? But the babe started kicking and waving his arms immediately, taking to the water like a fish, and Daenerys wished that she had been allowed to swim like the boys in the palace had been, to be able to be the one to give her son this joy. Then she smiled, remembering the now famous meeting between Dyanna, then Astrea's age, and Maekar who had not been much older. It had taken place at the pool at Dragonstone and now she could see why Dyanna had been so aghast at hearing that girls were not allowed to swim. _My daughters will learn this_ , Daenerys thought, pleased that she had wed in a land that would not deprive them of this joy.

When she said this to Maron, he laughed. "Swimming?" he asked. "Is this the great achievement you're so happy of?"

He didn't understand. No one did like she did, like Dyanna did, what it meant to be deprived of this simple pleasure.

"Look," Maron suggested. "If it means so much to you, I can teach you to swim."

He might not understand but he was ready to do whatever he could to remedy the situation. Her smile was immediate, wide, and completely unladylike.

"I'd love that very much," she said.

* * *

Dyanna wed in a bright spring redolent with promises. To Maekar! Daenerys' feelings were quite conflicted. She had often thought that the violet-eyed, lively Dayne, with her quick tongue, would be the darling of any court but she had never thought she's actually lose her to one. Sunspear and King's Landing were so far away! Now, Daenerys would see her only when one of them undertook the long travel to visit. And while the match was no doubt a glorious one, she couldn't help but wonder how much of Dyanna would be left with a boy as grim and solemn as Maekar… and she wasn't the only one.

"Listen, I'll give you three thousand dragons if you change your mind," Ileria Toland, Dyanna's grandmother said. "Do not wed him. You'll regret it till the end of your days."

This much support to her own mind angered Daenerys so much that she was about to announce her presence at the door. What did Lady Toland offer? There wasn't _time_ for Dyanna to change her mind. The wedding would take place in a few _hours_.

"Just don't say the words," the old woman went on and it all became clear. Once again, Daenerys felt that there was much work to be done for the wounds on both sides to heal.

And still, later the same day it looked like they had. In fact, the harmony between Dornishmen and men from the Reach and the Riverlands looked almost too great. Was that Aegor Bittersteel talking to Cletus Yronwood? She squinted to see better and was taken by surprise when Daemon Blackfyre approached her and asked for a dance.

The audacity! She might have accepted her husband's bastard but she would _not_ accept her father's! Especially one as troublesome as Daemon! In her time away from King's Landing, he had sharpened the divide even more, making demands that were entirely unreasonable. Wanting the same number of noble attendants for Rohanne as Jenna had? Desiring to be the captain of the gold cloaks without any regard for the man who had been holding the office with honour ever since Daeron appointed him? What made him think that he could ask her for a dance as if he were her equal?

Of course, she couldn't refuse him. A quick glance at Maron confirmed that. He nodded, knowing as well as she did that with all eyes on them, a refusal might lead to a massive clash that would stain Dyanna's wedding gown with red before the day was over, so Daenerys smiled and accepted Daemon's hand. And while he was leading her in the dance, there was only one thought in her mind each time they turned and she saw the faces of the people watching them, _Why are they looking at us like that? What is it that I don't know?_

 


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who stayed with me till the end, your comments are much appreciated.

 No matter where she looked him from, Mors was dark-haired. Too dark-haired. Olive-skinned. Overly olive-skinned. Everything about him would have screamed Dornish even without his silken robes and that worried Daenerys. She remembered all too well the looks she had gotten when she had first come here. The looks Baelor constantly got after a lifetime in King's Landing and Dragonstone. Dornish, Dornish.

"Come on, Daenerys," Maron would say. "Do you really think Daeron and Mariah would let him be mistreated in any way?"

She didn't and each time she told him so. But the worry was a constant weight in her heart, under her skin. In addition to Mors' Dornishness, that was the most unfortunate time for him to go to court. Behind the carefully worded letters, she could feel the tensions run high – and it was not only because of the vile rumours, may the Seven curse the ones spreading them! Baelor and Maekar seemed to be on opposite positions about what to do with the traitors who had yet to reveal themselves; Rhaegel's madness was known to everyone now; in addition to the calumnies spread about Daenerys and her late mother, a new one had emerged – that Dyanna had struck some kind of deal with entities not of this world, so they let her recover from the shameful ailment that had been eating at her flesh, much like the fleshworms that had taken King Aegon's life.

"Those are just vile rumours," Daeron had said briefly a few months ago when Daenerys had visited court. "I'd like to lay my hands on the ones spreading them – and that will be better for them instead of Maekar getting to them first!" She didn't know if he had, but the word of people who had lost their lives for simply telling the truth about the Dornishwoman had spread wide and far. Worse yet was the reality of Maekar's plunging into darkness – Daenerys had seen that with her own eyes.

"He doesn't love the younger one, does he?" she had asked and Daeron had aged before her very eyes.

"He denies it but I know he doesn't. Or at least not as he should. He thinks the lesion wasn't there before Aerion was born. And I…" He had cut his words short and she had not dared ask.

All in all, it was not a happy court that she'd send her Mors to and yet send him she must, for that was the age when he could actually form friendships and relationships that could truly build a bridge between Dorne and the rest of the kingdoms. Mariah's marriage to Daeron had paved the road; Daenerys and Maron's own union had started the preparations but it was the new people who could actually walk the road. She stared at the pools, now filled with laughing children, and felt it was the right thing to do. That knowledge just didn't make it easier.

"For someone this young, Mors is turning out great," Maron would say. "Do think about the courage you and Mariah showed."

Daenerys thought about the fate of the little Dayne girl, one of the first Daeron's hostages, instead. Astra who had been Mors' age when she had first encountered the cold winter and hatred of the Red Keep that had finally claimed her life. But Mors was of no delicate constitution. And he wouldn't be a hostage. He'd be a cherished guest. No, Maron was right. If Daenerys had been able to face all the bitterness and dislike due to her father here and Mariah had faced the man himself and emerged victorious, then Mors could face the gloom that awaited him in King's Landing.

Only, he did not reach King's Landing at all.

"Daemon had claimed the crown?" Daenerys asked incredulously, unable to believe that it could have happened so fast. Couldn't Daeron and Mariah have warned her after he escaped and before she sent her son to travel in those newly dangerous times? Oh but perhaps they hadn't known the reach of Daemon's treachery and _readiness_. Or the ravens hadn't reached Sunspear because they had had to fly over lands that had suddenly became enemy.

"I've sent orders to the Tor to not let Mors go," Maron said, immediately guessing what her utmost fear was. "If he's there, Lord Jordayne will keep him where he is until we can take him back."

If, if, if. And even if their boy was still there, Yronwood was so close – and they had declared for Daemon, the traitors that they were. Daenerys paced and watched, paced and watched, wondering who she feared more, Daemon or the Yronwoods. While the vile rumours the traitors spread about her brought her to rage, the thought of her boy in Daemon's hand curdled her blood. Even with the calumnies about her mother, there was still someone of the legitimate line standing between Daemon and the crown he so coveted – Daenerys herself. And her children… As to the Yronwoods, it wasn't hard to see what their purpose was. It was one and the same, actually…

"And they call us treacherous," Dyanna said fiercely as she paced Daenerys' chambers as if her feet just couldn't stop. "The hypocrites they are! They're shouting against us and claim a desire to avenge the Young Dragon but they're siding with the very people who killed him. Because it wasn't us or the Martells who killed him. It wasn't us who kept Aemon the Dragonknight as a personal prize…"

"That's what could have been expected of a Wyl who were indeed always close to the Yronwoods," her grandmother said, lips curling down in derision. "Not that the boy deserved better. Daeron, I mean. Prince Aemon did try to do right by us whenever possible."

_Did he_ , Daenerys wondered, amazed not by the words but Lady Ileria's willingness to say them. So much pain and hostility had melted – and Daemon and his cronies saw that as a bad thing? Or was it only bad when it didn't suit their purpose? Some avengers they were!

Mors arrived back in a dark night two weeks after Daemon had made his claim and Daenerys gasped when she saw him because there had been no word as to how far north he had gone in his journey… and because in the new glitter of his eyes she realized that in that brief time, he had learned how to hate.

"Are you truly fine?" she asked anxiously, examining him for any wounds. "You have… no bruises?"

The boy nodded. "I am fine, thanks to Lady Gargalen. She was traveling with me from the Tor and we were going to separate in the Prince's Pass and she was going to visit Skyreach…"

Daenerys wondered why those details mattered. She was glad that the son Maron's mistress had given her old man would be one of Mors' most loyal bannermen one day but she didn't truly want to hear about the woman. She wanted to know how Mors had managed to steal away, why there had been no word…

"It's her, Alor's mother who died," the boy went on, his voice shaking. "We heard about armed men looking for me. She was not about to stand by and find out what they wanted after they found me. So she ordered Ser Gawen to take me to the Scourge and from there to Godsgrace while she resumed her journey as if we were still together. The attack was without warning…. They say Walder Wyl personally tied her to his saddle when she refused to say where I had gone. She wasn't very healthy, so she dropped dead before the first mile was over."

Silence followed – terrible silence, deadly silence. Daenerys stole a glance at Maron and drew back, horrified, as if she were intruding on something not meant for her. With time, Elana Jordayne, Elana Gargalen had stopped mattering but she had thought that Maron had forgotten about her. It was clear that he hadn't but this time, she didn't hold it against him. She was ashamed to remember just how much she had hated the other woman, how she had hoped that Elana would die giving birth to her last child with Maron. Now, she admired Elana's courage and hoped that in death, she'd know more happiness than she had in life, at least after Daenerys' arrival.

That night, she went to bed with the vision of her children sharing Elana's fate if they lost – by the hands of the very man who proclaimed to love her. And although she waited till midnight, Maron didn't come. He only entered her bedchamber when it was almost dawn and Daenerys could feel his eyes on her as she pretended to be asleep, although he could surely hear the pounding of her heart. When she dared a look, she found out that he had taken a seat near the hearth with black ash, staring unseeingly at the emptiness inside. Without words, she was sure that in his chamber, the box he always closed when he saw her would be open.

* * *

_Many years later…_

It was night again when they came. Just like it had been when all those years ago Dyanna and Jenna had arrived running from the rebellion that had been close on them. Like the night Mors had returned with the news of Elana Gargalen's death. So many years but Daenerys had the feeling that nothing had changed. Even the victory that they had come with did not make them look more triumphant, just tired to the bones. Maron smiled at her, happy to see her, as she drank both him and Mors in before looking at the others – dark forms in dark cloaks in the dark night.

"Where can I put her?" Maekar asked as if they were continuing a conversation from just an hour ago. When she led them to a chamber and he placed the bundle in his arms gently on the bed, Daenerys saw the burns on the woman and gasped.

"Saryl Lothston?" she asked, remembering the woman who had been one of Dyanna's attendants and now attended Maekar in another capacity. She had been taken by Bittersteel as soon as he had landed and had clearly fared badly.

Maron nodded. "She's lucky to be alive," he said and paused. "Bittersteel is now on his way to King's Landing, along with the King's Hand. We only came here so Lady Saryl could be attended."

"Maekar will no doubt want to be there for his execution," Daenerys said. There was no doubt in her mind that Aerys would order it. Aegor Rivers was doubly guilty, first for goading Daemon into rebelling and now with all but orchestrating this new rebellion. Looking at the poor woman on the bed, she was astounded that Bittersteel still lived. _They must have stopped Maekar by force_ , she thought just when another one of the dark figures stepped to the bed, removing her hood to reveal a waterfall of black hair. Daenerys gasped.

"Dyanna…"

"No," Maekar said and smiled a little. "It isn't Dyanna. It's Daella."

Daenerys knew that apart from being his mistress, Saryl Lothston had taken care of his daughters for years and it showed now in the ease of Daella's ministrations. She sat on the edge of the bed, moving the hair back from Saryl's face, and looked around for some water and cloth to cool her forehead.

No one felt the need to talk, they were all staring at the woman on the bed and Daenerys felt that it had been all for nothing. What had they achieved since they had started living? Peace was as elusive as ever; victory was such a bleak thing; innocents paid for wars that were not their own. Had it all been in vain? No, no, it hadn't! Nothing would have happened if not for Daemon and Bittersteel, his instigator. Daemon had paid for his treachery and now so would Bittersteel. It was good and right, and it brought her no joy. So many good men had died. Later, she'd ask Maron about Ultor Dayne, although it would pain her to hear the details. He had been as good a friend as his sister.

"When did it happen?" the maester asked, pushing his way to the bed, and Daella started answering his questions. She looked exhausted, although not as exhausted as her mother when Dyanna had been fighting the corroding disease. When she rose, she swayed dangerously and Elana's son, Alor Gargalen, was suddenly there, reaching over to steady her and Daenerys was abruptly thrown back in time when Maekar had crossed a hall before she could blink… and Dyanna could fall. Daella looked at Alor and smiled and Daenerys held her breath. She knew that smile – Dyanna had smiled at Maekar like that in aftermath of the first rebellion, with the belief that there would never be a second one. _Let there never be a fourth one_ , she beseeched the Seven as the maester told them in polite but no uncertain terms that they were not needed in the chamber. _Stop the deaths. Stop the debasement of my mother and myself. We've all already paid enough. Let the young ones live well and long._

Maron took her hand and everything became a little brighter.

* * *

 

**The End**

 


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